Teepee Fire

The teepee fire or tipi fire is a fire building style that many people love to use. In fact, when building campfires I prefer this method more than any other style and use it frequently.

The teepee design works great because it's quick and easy to construct plus it gives off a lot of heat for everyone sitting around the fire.

The teepee design should only be used for an outdoor campfire.

Since the design requires the tinder and fuel wood to be stacked in the shape of a teepee, the wood will typically collapse on itself as the fire burns down.

Building this style of fire inside a fireplace is not recommend since the structure will eventually fall over and the burning logs could roll out of the fireplace.

For outdoor use, the teepee design works great for cooking campfire meals with a tripod grill, skewers, or simply roasting a hotdog or marshmallow.

Teepee Fire Construction

The teepee design can be a little tricky to build at first but with a little practice it's really not that hard.

To begin take some dry tinder and place it in a small pile in the middle of your fire pit. Dry leaves, twigs and paper will all work good for tinder. Just make sure it's dry, loosely piled and not tightly compacted.

Next, find a handful of small branches to use as kindling to begin creating the shape of the teepee. You can also use thinly split pine, cedar, poplar or many other firewood types. Just make sure the wood is split relatively thin and the wood is dry.

Sticking one end of the kindling in the ground while resting the top of the wood against each other works great in the beginning to help form the teepee shape. Once the basic framework is completed you can rest the additional pieces of kindling against this framework.

Now, take several pieces of larger wood (called fuel wood) and continue stacking them in the teepee shape against the kindling. Leave enough airspace between the sticks to allow airflow to reach the fire.

Finally, light the tinder in the middle of the teepee fire and you're done! The tinder will light the kindling which will in turn light your larger fuel wood creating a nice warm fire for everyone to enjoy.

As the fire burns down and the teepee design begins to crumble just criss cross additional fuel wood over the pile of coals and the fire will continue to burn without any issues.

Overall

Building a teepee fire is one of the quickest and easiest ways to build a hassle free campfire.

The shape allows a lot of airflow to reach the fire and the overall design is enjoyable to watch as the fire burns.